The Greenland Ice Sheet is losing mass in the 21st century at accelerated rates. Thus, it has become the largest single contributor to rising sea levels. Researchers have found out, that glaciers on the island would continue shrinking even if global warming is to stop today.
In the study called the Dynamic ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet driven by sustained glacier retreat which was lead by a researcher from The Ohio State University and was published on August 13, 2020, findings show the snowfall that replenishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that is flowing into the ocean from glaciers.
“We’ve been looking at these remote sensing observations to study how ice discharge and accumulation have varied. And what we’ve found is that the ice that’s discharging into the ocean is far surpassing the snow that’s accumulating on the surface of the ice sheet.”
– Michalea King, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center
Data from more than 200 large glaciers draining into the ocean around Greenland have been analyzed by the researchers. They have observed how much ice breaks off into icebergs or melts from the glaciers into the ocean and the amount of snowfall each year.
Their analysis found that the amount of ice being lost each year started increasing steadily around 2000. According to them, the snowfall did not increase at the same time and the rate of ice loss from glaciers has stayed about the same.
The ice sheet would have about the same chance to gain or lose mass each year before the year 2000. However, the ice sheet will gain mass in only one out of every 100 years with the current climate.
“Even if the climate were to stay the same or even get a little colder, the ice sheet would still be losing mass.”
– Ian Howat, a co-author on the paper, professor of earth sciences and distinguished university scholar at Ohio State
“It’s always a positive thing to learn more about glacier environments, because we can only improve our predictions for how rapidly things will change in the future. And that can only help us with adaptation and mitigation strategies. The more we know, the better we can prepare.”
– Michalea King, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center
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